The Merry Month
Robert Merry, an independent stone consultant and project manager who ran his own company for 17 years and now also runs training courses on project management, gives his personal slant on the stone industry this month.
The search for a biomass boiler – very BBC schools science programme sounding. Or perhaps an unwritten Famous Five adventure. The alliteration gives it a seaside postcard feel. “I say, I say, I say, have you seen my Biomass Boiler?” “No, but I got a right good eyeful of Betty’s last night.....!!!”. Boom! Boom!
No such seaside frolics at EcoBuild last month. That’s where I started my search for the biomass boiler. There was plenty of ‘greenwash’ bandwagonning that left me not entirely convinced every product on show had real environmental credentials.
Rainwater harvesting sounds very high tech, but I think my Grandad used to do this with a water butt and piece of galvanised drain pipe running off his allotment shed roof.
Eco ‘slate’ tiles are another dubious product. How environmentally friendly is a plastic, man-made tile with an Eco prefix to its name compared with the real thing.
It’s almost as ridiculous as concrete block pretending it’s either natural or stone. And they had a stand there, too. Right next to the Stone Federation block.
But there were some excellent examples of really green products rising above the greenwash.
An underground waste system by a Swedish company called Envac, for example. Segregated rubbish is sucked down a pipe at 40mph from the street to a central waste area, where it is collected.
This has been installed in the UK by a developer called Wembley City in a new development.
I was lucky enough to attend a lecture a couple of years ago where this developer was the guest speaker, extolling the virtues of this innovation. I remember thinking at the time it seemed far-fetched. But apparently not.
All Wembley City need now is a biomass boiler to turn the waste into heat, completing the recycling process. Must keep looking.
The use of sheep’s wool to insulate buildings seemed slightly ridiculous and idiosyncratically British. After reading the literature and visiting the stand the re-use of wool to keep us warm, previously employed by its owner (the sheep) to keep it warm, started to grow on me (not literally).
Thankfully no-one was exhibiting a fully knitted house, though look out for one next year.
Biomass boilers burn waste produced by other industries, such as wood chips from the timber industry or as a bi-product of forestry management.
They can be built to heat whole communities – like those installed in Sheffield as part of the district heating systems. There are 45km of pipes connecting up to 266 flats. There are smaller versions with less output for local estates.
It is carbon neutral because the carbon emitted from burning the wood is equal to the carbon captured by growing it.
Fuel poverty is an increasing threat to many of us and biomass boilers reduce our reliance on expensive fossil fuels.
My search for the elusive biomass boiler stand at the exhibition ended without success. Not because there weren’t any exhibitors, but because of exhaustion. The entire floor area of Excel was covered by this mammoth show – 88,500m2 of floor space. That’s a big carpet!
I hadn’t done my research. I went late in the afternoon and spent most of the time jawing with colleagues on the Stone Federation stand.
Which leads me to congratulate the Stone Federation on its Sustainability Awards (see page 28). Three great schemes won and hopefully the development plans of each will be put into action in time for the next round of the awards next year.
Unfortunately none of them installed a biomass boiler – disappointing but understandable, I suppose. Probably they couldn’t find the biomass boiler stand either.